Your new, $149 film scanner from Nikon

Nikon’s new ES-2 Film Digitizing Adaptor is a great way to turn your 35mm negatives into jpegs large enough to print at A1 size. All you need to add is a Nikon D850 and its 45.7MP sensor.

Admittedly, that bumps the price up somewhat, and there are plenty of other options on the market. But if you were wavering about buying a D850, are still messing about with film, and weren’t put off by the prospect of a fairly long-waiting time to get your hands on the D850 itself (pre-orders filled up within a day or so), this might be the gadget for you.

Okay, it’s a bit of a niche product, but it illustrates quite nicely the sheer imaging power the new camera has at its disposal.

The adaptor is designed to sit in front of a macro lens (Nikon recommends the AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED) where it holds the film using either an additional strip film or slide holder at the minimum focusing distance for ultimate sharpness. Images are captured in Photo Live View before the camera automatically reverses the colours of the neg using a dedicated Negative Digitizer mode and converts the film to JPEG.

As we said, it’s niche but it’s kinda neat too: a pleasing mix of analogue and the latest digital tech. Availability is roughly the same time as the D850, but we don't expect this to sell out quite so fast.

Andy has spent over two decades writing about all aspects of the broadcast and film industries for a variety of high-profile industry publications on both sides of the Atlantic. During that time the industry has moved from 4:3 SD to 16:9 SD to HD and now on to 4K HDR. He's getting kind of curious to see where it goes next.